HOW on Earth has it come to be acceptable that disabled people have become the fall guys of the coalition government?

Subject to hostility and suspicion, bearing the brunt of austerity — it’s both tragic and outrageous to see the clock turned back on the progress in disabled people’s rights that has been made in recent years.

Labour is determined to reverse this disgraceful trend. Ed Miliband himself has said that equality must be our defining purpose. The discrimination and disadvantage that disabled people experience is something we will not tolerate.

This week at conference disabled people will be fighting back. Disability Labour is hosting a fringe event today, at which the voice of disabled people will be loud and clear at the heart of our party.

And Labour politicians will be listening. For the inclusion and participation of disabled people in all aspects of our society lies at the heart of Labour’s ambition that we should be “one nation.”

In opposition, we have already begun to develop policies to achieve that vision.

Last year at conference, recognising the shocking surge in hate crime that is symbolic of the rising hostility disabled people face, Liam Byrne pledged that a Labour government would legislate to introduce a specific offence of disability hate crime.

And in response to the economic disadvantage disabled people experience — twice as likely to live in poverty, faced with additional living costs and with an employment rate around 30 per cent below that of non-disabled working age people — Byrne and the then shadow minister for disabled people Anne McGuire asked an independent task force, chaired by leading disability rights activist Sir Bert Massie, for recommendations on how to break the unacceptable link between poverty and disability.

Top of the task force’s recommendations was to improve the employment experience of disabled people. That goes to the heart of our Labour values. The chance to work, the right to work, the dignity of work are central to what our party stands for.

Benefit and employment support changes and the closure of Remploy factories since 2010 have prevented some disabled people retaining jobs.

While of course not every disabled person is able to work — and we must properly protect those who are unable to do so — many more could be working and very many would love to work.

Labour is prioritising the development of policies that will increase the employment chances of disabled people.

We’ve already said we will reform the work capacity assessment to refocus it on its original purpose — identifying the support disabled people who can work would need to enable them to do so.

But there’s much more to do. The present government’s employment programmes for disabled people have been an abysmal failure.
Its flagship Work Programme has got just one in 20 into work — worse than if there was no programme at all.
 
The number of specialist disability employment advisers in Jobcentre Plus has been slashed by almost 100 since 2010, leaving just one adviser for every 600 people.

The Access to Work scheme, designed to help with additional costs that disabled people could face at work and enable adaptations and adjustments, has been described as the government’s “best-kept secret” — and ministers seem determined to keep it that way.
 
Bureaucratic obstacles, minimal promotion and a tendency to say No to applications for funding make no sense when we’re trying to increase the rate of disabled people’s employment.

Labour will take action to address this failure. We have already begun to look at how we can replace the centrally driven, top-down Work Programme with combined local authorities taking the lead in commissioning programmes, so that provision is better matched to the local services and support available and to the local labour market.

We will protect and enhance the specialist role of disability employment advisers, including through the retraining of staff. And we will proactively promote Access to Work and iron out the problems in its administration.

And, importantly, we are determined that disabled people themselves will have a central role in shaping policy and delivery.
 
We will establish user-led groups of disabled people to review and advise us on our policies. That’s important to get the policy right but it also recognises that disabled people themselves should shape the decisions that affect them.

For, as Miliband has recognised, equality isn’t just about the allocation of resources, it’s also about making sure that power and decision-making are as close as possible to those affected.

It’s about ensuring that policies designed for all work harder to meet the needs of those who face the greatest barriers.

It’s about recognising the dignity of disabled people and their right to respect and autonomy.

That’s been notably, shamefully, missing from the practice and rhetoric of the present government.

Labour will do things differently.

Kate Green is Labout MP for Stretford and Urmston and shadow spokeswoman for disabled people.